Photo hoax showing a flooded Red Rocks Amphitheatre goes viral

This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.

A hoax image appeared to show portions of Red Rocks deep under water.

Photo hoax showing a flooded Red Rocks Amphitheatre goes viral

A hoax image appeared to show portions of Red Rocks deep under water.

MORRISON, Colo. — This weekend, Coloradans saw catastrophic flooding in places they never believed it could happen. But the state’s iconic Red Rocks Amphitheatre was not one of them, in spite of an image that rushed across the internet Sunday.

A photo apparently taken from a local webcam site appeared to show the legendary venue under dozens of feet of water Sunday. The image was even accurate enough to include banners for local radio station KTCL, which were only in place this weekend.

The news came as a shock to thousands of fans planning to attend a sold-out show by Denver folk band the Lumineers.

But the image, which quickly burned across social media sites and fooled at least one regional media outlet, turned out to be a hoax. The show went on as planned, complete with a fundraising effort for flood victims. The original photo has since been removed from Twitter, but that didn’t stop confusion from spreading for hours as grainy versions kept making the rounds.